How to Find Search Words in Google Analytics

Figuring out the exact words people typed into Google to find your website is one of the most valuable insights you can get. This information helps verify your SEO strategy, optimize ad campaigns, and create content that truly resonates with your audience. Here’s how you can find both your paid and organic search query data inside Google Analytics 4.

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Finding Your Paid Search Queries in GA4

If you're running Google Ads, GA4 can show you exactly which search terms are triggering your ads and how those clicks are translating into on-site behavior and revenue. Finding this report is straightforward once your accounts are linked.

Step 1: Link Google Ads to Google Analytics 4

Before any data can appear, you must connect your two accounts. This connection is essential for sharing data between platforms, enabling you to see ad performance alongside user behavior.

You’ll need Editor permissions in GA4 and Administrator access in Google Ads. Here’s the quick rundown:

1. Log into your Google Analytics 4 account and click on Admin in the bottom-left corner.
2. In the Property column, find the Product Links section and click on Google Ads Links.
3. Click the blue Link button in the top right.
4. Click Choose Google Ads accounts and select the ad account you want to link. Click Confirm.
5. Click Next, and leave Enable Personalized Advertising on (this is for remarketing).
6. Leave Enable Auto-Tagging on. This is crucial as it automatically adds the GCLID parameter to your ad URLs, which GA4 needs to track everything correctly.
7. Click Next and then Submit to finalize the link.

The connection is now active, though it may take 24-48 hours for data to start populating in your GA4 reports.

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Step 2: Navigate to the Google Ads Search Queries Report

Once your accounts are linked and data is flowing, you can access the report containing your search queries.

1. From the left-hand navigation in GA4, go to Reports.
2. Under the Acquisition dropdown, click on Acquisition overview.
3. You should see a card titled Google Ads Campaigns. At the bottom of this card, click View Google Ads campaigns.
4. This will open the main campaigns report. From here, you need to find the specific search query data. By default, the drop-down menu on the primary dimension might already be set to "Session Google Ads campaign." By dropping that down, an option Session Google Ads search query will appear.
5. Select Session Google Ads search query. A list with all of the search queries from users that are sent via Google ads will come up.

If you plan to visit this report often, it’s a good idea to add it directly to your main navigation menu. You can do this by going to the Library section and adding the report to a collection like "Acquisition."

How to Interpret and Use This Report

The Google Ads Search Queries report provides a goldmine of information. Here are the key metrics and how to use them:

• Google Ads Search Query: This is the exact phrase a user typed into the search bar before they saw and clicked on your ad. It's the purest form of user intent you can find.
• Users & Sessions: These standard GA4 metrics show you how many people clicked on ads triggered by this term and how many sessions they initiated.
• Engaged Sessions: A high engagement rate indicates the search term is driving relevant traffic to an effective landing page. A low rate for a high-cost query might mean there's a disconnect between the ad and the landing page experience.
• Conversions: You can see precisely which search queries led to conversions. This is direct proof of your ad campaign's effectiveness.
• Total Revenue: If you have e-commerce tracking enabled, this column shows the revenue generated from users who clicked ads triggered by each specific search term.

Actionable Insights You Can Gain:

• Identify High-Performing Keywords: Sort by Conversions or Total Revenue to find your "money" keywords. Consider allocating more budget to campaigns that target these queries or their themes.
• Discover Negative Keywords: Look for search queries that are costing you money but generating zero conversions or engagement. These are signs of irrelevant traffic. Add them to your negative keyword list in Google Ads immediately to stop wasting ad spend. For example, if you sell "premium photo editing software," a search for "free photo editor" is a great candidate for your negative keyword list.
• Refine Ad Copy & Landing Pages: Do the highest-traffic keywords align with the main headline on your landing page? Mismatched messaging can lead to high bounce rates. Match your landing page content more closely to your best-performing ad queries.

Uncovering Your Organic Search Queries in GA4

Unlike paid search, Google Analytics 4 does not track organic search keywords natively. For privacy reasons, this data has been listed as (not provided) for years. But don't worry - Google offers another free tool that holds all the answers: Google Search Console.

By connecting Google Search Console (GSC) to GA4, you can pull your critical organic search data directly into your analytics interface.

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Step 1: Link Google Search Console to Google Analytics 4

Just like with Google Ads, the first step is to establish a link between the two platforms. To do this, you need to be a verified owner of the GSC property and have Editor permissions in GA4.

1. In GA4, navigate back to Admin in the bottom-left corner.
2. Scroll down to the Product Links section in the Property column and click on Search Console Links.
3. Click the blue Link button.
4. A pane will open. Click Choose accounts and select the GSC property you want to connect. Then click Confirm.
5. On the next step, select the appropriate web data stream for your website and click Next.
6. Finally, click Submit to create the link.

Once linked, GA4 will automatically create a new "Search Console" reporting collection. Sometimes it can take up to 48 hours for everything to appear.

Step 2: Find the Google Search Console Reports in GA4

After the link is active and data has had time to sync, you'll find the new information in your reporting section.

1. Go to Reports > Acquisition > Acquisition overview.
2. Scroll down, and you should now see two new report cards: one titled Google organic search traffic and another titled Google organic search queries.
3. To dive deeper, click View Google organic search queries to see the search terms, or look in your main navigation menu. A "Search Console" collection should have appeared. Inside, you'll find two reports:

Interpreting the Organic Queries Report

The GSC Queries report offers different but equally valuable metrics compared to the paid query report. Understanding these is key to improving your SEO.

• Google Organic Search Query: Same as with paid search, but this time it’s the term that led to an organic (unpaid) result being shown.
• Organic Google Search Impressions: The number of times your website appeared in the search results for that particular query.
• Organic Google Search Clicks: The number of times users clicked your link from the search results after searching for that term.
• Organic Google Search Click-Through-Rate (CTR): A percentage calculated by dividing clicks by impressions. This is a very important metric for gauging how effective your page titles and meta descriptions are at grabbing attention.
• Average Position: The average ranking your website held in the search results for that specific query.

Important Limitation: Bridging The Data Gap

You'll quickly notice a major difference between the paid and organic reports: there are no Conversion or Revenue metrics in the GSC reports within GA4. The two data sets are kept separate, GA4 knows what a user does on your site, and GSC knows how a user found your site via Google Search, but they don't share keyword-level data. This means you can’t directly see that "keyword X" led to revenue. Frustrating, yes, but not a deal-breaker.

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How you can leverage your organic query data:

• Find "Striking Distance" Keywords: Filter the report to show your queries with an Average position of between 11 and 20. This shows you keywords that are already on page 2 of Google's search results and could just use small on-page optimizations to push you to the coveted first page.
• Find High-Impression, Low-CTR Keywords: This often suggests that your page title is not compelling enough to earn a click. Even with a good ranking, you could miss out on traffic. Revisit your page title and meta descriptions with these queries in mind and try to make them more intriguing.

Final Thoughts

In GA4, getting to your search query data requires you to connect your data sources a bit more interactively than in past versions. By linking both Google Ads and Google Search Console, you unlock access to vital insights that allow you to optimize ad spends, refine your SEO strategy, and ultimately serve your audience better. Understanding the process of toggling into multiple platforms, working with separate data sets, and trying to patch the story together is exactly the kind of manual reporting that can drain your most valuable resource: time.

That is where we come in. We designed Graphed to eliminate all that data friction. By connecting all your data sources like Google Analytics, Ads, and Search Console, you can access prepared insights and reports, knowing how to strategically enhance engaging keywords and drive the right engagement. We are giving you back your day to allow you to spend it all on reporting efficiency.